Page 88 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“It’s a pity. They are a strong pack. They have lands rich with ore and they are well liked in the north. If you’d been able to take the pack as your mates, you’d have brought many of the northerners to your side in the fight with these interlopers.”

“Strength? Is that all I’m supposed to be looking for in a potential mate?” Eleanor asked. “Grandmother said little about that.”

“A queen needs strong consorts,” Nordred said. “Whoever you take to your bed, let into your heart, they will augment your own abilities, help you to be the best queen you can be. They are your means to connect with the people.”

She blinked then, having heard the rote response so many times, but when Nordred said the words, it hit her differently. She took a step forward, watching his pupils flare as she did so, though he held his ground. She studied his face, looking into all that high cheek-boned and full lipped perfection for a sign. But no one saw anything in Nordred, naught but what he wished.

“If strength is all I require, then surely you would be best suited to be my mate?” Eleanor was proud of herself for uttering her heretical theory in a perfectly even tone. She’d never dared to say anything like this before, but now? She felt like a hunted animal, one with a snare tightening slowly around her, and that made her reckless. “For who is stronger than Nordred the wizard?”

“Majesty—”

She was a queen, wasn’t she? Her ancestors had claimed this country as theirs and ruled it by strength of their might, so surely she could do this? Her hand reached out into the perilous space between them, feeling like aeons passed before her fingers touched the fine wool of his doublet.

“The legends say you can level mountains, part the seas at will and ride the winds,” she continued.

“The tales are greatly exaggerated,” he replied, but his voice was much deeper, rougher now. “Exaggerated by me to keep the bloody courtiers off my back.”

“You are a great man.” Her heart sped up and felt like it was about to beat so fast there would be no gap between each thud, as her palm came to rest on his chest. “Greater than any pack that has lived and will live.”

She took another cautious step forward and that’s when she was able to catch the signs she was searching for so earnestly. Her breath was coming in rapid little pants, but so was his.

“Imagine what we could do together if you were my mate,” she said, the words dropping like millstones in a pond, each one so heavy. “Imagine how your power could augment mine.”

“Eleanor…”

Gods, she would sigh in her bed for weeks just at the sound of her name. He never used it, always so correct, so formal. She was his queen, his majesty, but all she wanted to be was his Eleanor, just as he said it then.

His voice coarse, ragged, his eyes blazing blue and bluer as he dared to stare down at her. When his hand covered hers, she damn near screamed in joy inside her mind, then again as his fingers tightened.

“I can imagine. It feels like that’s all I do, is stare at you and dream. Imagining you under me.” She let out a little whimper at that and Nordred’s arm snaked around her waist, pulling her to him. Her head spun, her lungs burned for air as she laid her head on his shoulder. “I know you’re mine, lass. I’ve known it from the moment I set eyes on you. So I know exactly what kind of pain you experience each time these packs of lunks are paraded past you.”

His mouth dropped down and she dared to lift her own to meet it.

“Because I feel it too.”

“Nordred…”

She gasped out her mate’s name with all the pent up desperation she’d felt for so long, her lips parting… when a sharp knock on the door alerted them to the fact another pack was ready to present themselves.

They jerked themselves apart from each other, her hands shaking as she smoothed them over the folds of her dress before she drew herself up, tall and queenly. Callum stepped inside, looking around the room with a frown.

“The Armstrongs have gone already?” he asked.

“We are not suited,” Eleanor replied.

Callum let out a long sigh, raking his hand through his hair. “Well, the Braylings are here. They’re a northern pack as well. Not as well placed as the Armstrongs but…”

Her brother’s words faded away as her eyes slid sideways, finding Nordred’s in a split second, a dark knowledge burning between both of them.

For once, she’d followed her forebears’ example, dared to reach out for what she wanted. She had no doubt that Nordred would protest, argue that they needed to think of the country first and their hearts second, but she was the ruler, not him. She would not live without her true mate. She wouldn’t.

“Darcy.”

I blinked, coming back to the room and wondering what the hell I’d told the children. I glanced at Del, then down at Jan in alarm.

“So the queen and the wizard told each other they loved each other?” Jan asked.

“Ah… sort of,” I replied.

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